Master Physics from first principles
Motion, forces, energy, momentum, thermodynamics, waves, electricity, and modern physics. Covers TEKS §112.39.
Physics 1A: Scientific Processes & Measurement
Lab safety in the physics classroom, the scientific method as a discipline, measurement precision and accuracy, SI units, and how graphs let you read motion. The foundation the CBE expects you already have.
Physics 1A: Motion in One Dimension (Kinematics)
Position, displacement, speed, velocity, and acceleration — the language physicists use to describe motion. The four kinematic equations that solve almost every 1D problem on the Physics Semester A CBE. And how motion graphs let you skip algebra entirely.
Physics 1A: Newton’s Laws & Force Applications
Newton’s three laws — the framework physicists use to explain every motion problem in Physics Semester A. Weight vs mass, free-body diagrams that catch algebra errors before you make them, and the subtleties of action-reaction pairs that most students get wrong.
Physics 1A: Gravitation & Fundamental Forces
Newton’s law of universal gravitation, the inverse-square dependence that changes the answer by a factor of 4 when you double the distance, weight vs mass on different worlds, and where gravity sits among the four fundamental forces.
Physics 1A: Energy, Work, Power & Momentum
The three currencies of mechanics — energy, momentum, and power — and the conservation laws that make almost every problem solvable without tracking each force. Work-energy theorem, kinetic vs potential energy transformations, impulse, and the difference between elastic and inelastic collisions.
Physics 1A: Thermodynamics
Temperature vs heat — one of the most-tested distinctions in Physics 1A. Specific heat, three modes of thermal energy transfer, engine efficiency, thermal expansion, and the laws of thermodynamics that constrain what any physical process can and cannot do.
Physics 1B: Electric Force, Fields & Coulomb's Law
Coulomb's law and how it echoes gravity — inverse-square, universal, always acting at a distance. Electric fields as the framework for calculating forces without listing every source. Conductors, insulators, and where charge lives.
Physics 1B: Circuits & Ohm's Law
Current as flowing charge, voltage as electric pressure, resistance as the pushback. Ohm's law V = IR, power dissipated as heat P = IV, and the two arrangements — series and parallel — that determine everything about how the components share load.
Physics 1B: Magnetism & Electromagnetic Induction
Magnetic fields, how they exert forces on moving charges and current-carrying wires, and how a changing magnetic flux drives an electric current through a wire — the physics behind generators, motors, and the transformers that step voltages up and down between power plants and your home.
Physics 1B: Waves, Sound & Optics
Simple harmonic motion, transverse vs longitudinal waves, the universal v = λf relationship, and the six behaviors — reflection, refraction, diffraction, interference, resonance, Doppler — that the CBE tests. Plus mirrors, lenses, and Snell's law for optics.
Physics 1B: Atomic, Nuclear & Quantum Physics
Light as both wave and particle, E = hf and the photoelectric effect that gave Einstein his Nobel, atomic emission spectra, E = mc² and the energy locked in nuclear binding, and the modern quantum phenomena (Malus's law, uncertainty, quantum computing) added in the 2023 TEKS revision.